On Wednesday evening, November 1st, beginning at 7:30, we will begin our discussion of what it is to live a life of faith at home as a family. To helps us learn and live into forming our children's lives of faith (and shaping our own as well), we will use Elizabeth Caldwell's book Making a Home for Faith: Nurturing the Spiritual Life of Your Child.
Whether or not you can read the first few chapters before then (the book is available from Amazon and copies will arrive via Cokesbury in the Church office this week), we will begin our discussion by focusing on Caldwell's list, "What Every Parent Needs to Raise Faithful Children." She believes every parent should be able to do the following:
1. Read a story from the Bible.
2. Tell a Bible story.
3. Deal with children's questions.
4. Pray (privately and publicly).
5. Take some time daily or weekly for personal meditation.
6. Ask faith questions.
7. Struggle to understand and interpret affirmations of faith while balancing a life of faith in
mission and witness and being faithful in meditation, Scripture reading and prayer.
8. Explain the meaning of the sacraments and the liturgical year.
9. Struggle with language for God.
10. Become familiar with the basic beliefs and practices of other faith traditions.
11. Regularly participate in adult education.
12. Be layleaders in worship.
I don't know about you, but the list seems overwhelming. Seems like you would need a full seminary education to do this, doesn't it? It is rather daunting for any of us, but it is not beyond the realm of what any one of us can do. As you ponder these items this week, identify those practices you are already doing. I'll bet you have some practice of private prayer already - even if the prayer is just of the "Help Me, Lord!" variety as the bathtub overflows. Most likely, you are struggling like the rest of us to understand the affirmations of faith and balance a life of service, witness, prayer, study and reflection!
Some of the other pieces are harder. Not all of us were raised in a faith tradition and we may not know the biblical stories. If we know the stories, we may not know how to find them in the Bible or how to figure out where the ones are that we maybe heard in Church once upon a time.
We may not know what to say when our children ask us questions. And it is hard enough to understand our own United Methodist faith traditions, sacraments and the liturgical year, never mind have enough knowledge of other faith traditions to share them with our children.
All of this is perfectly normal. Not only are our children's lives of faith in process, so are our own.
Christian formation - what John Wesley called "being perfected" - is a life long process. Getting the process "perfect" is nowhere near as important as being in the process and trusting God's grace to do the work of perfecting. And as with anything else in Christian life, we are not asked to do this work alone. We have other Christians to share our struggles, our triumphs and our questions with as we grow into the image of God we are called to be.
SO . . . please bring YOUR experience to this class. Even if you haven't read the first few chapters of the book, YOU ALREADY KNOW the questions. As we begin what I hope will be an on-going conversation, please think about what you need to be better prepared to share the faith at home with your children. How can we help each other become more confident Christian parents? What specific topics would you like to know more about? What support do you need from the Church to help you share faith at home? Please come as you are, where you are in your life of faith. And if you aren't able to attend, post a comment to this blog with your questions and concerns. One of the best parts of being a Christian is that we are never on the journey alone!
Grace and peace,
Elizabeth
